... There's at least one giant reason not to mess with villagers. Their loyal defenders that can't drown, suffer pain from falling or even be knocked back. Sentient statues that deal huge damage with just a single swing of their mighty arms. We pity you if you're caught attacking villagers – we really do – because then you've just made an enemy of the Iron Golem. Don't be surprised if that's the last thing you ever do – they're one of the hardest hitting mobs in the Overworld.

Iron golems will spawn in a 16×6×16 area, centered vertically and horizontally between the bases of the 21 or more valid doors in a village if it has at least 10 villagers. The chance of spawning is 1 in 7000 per game tick, which averages around one every six minutes. Iron golems can spawn provided the blocks it spawns in are transparent and the block it spawns on top of has a solid surface. The maximum number of golems that can be in a single village is one-tenth the number of villagers in that village, provided that the door requirement is met.

The golem can also be constructed by placing blocks in a similar fashion to snow golems and withers. It is created by placing four iron blocks in a T shape (as shown in the image), and then placing a pumpkin or jack o'lantern on top of the center upper block. The pumpkin may be placed by the player, by a dispenser or by a pumpkin stem, but it must be placed last.

The block arrangement can be placed upright, lying down, or upside-down. The four empty spaces in the diagram (above and below each of the arms) must be air blocks. Any non-air block (including blocks such as snow layers, tall grass, and water) present in any of the empty spaces will prevent the golem from spawning.

Like other constructed mobs, iron golems always spawn facing south. Their large size may cause them to take suffocation damage from nearby solid blocks at the level of their head.

Iron golems will wander around a village in a patrol-like fashion, staying close to the edges of buildings and other structures. Like villagers, iron golems will not wander away from a village, regardless of how they were spawned. Iron golems will sometimes face a villager, as if they are speaking to each other. Iron golems are able to spawn poppies in their hands and offer them to villagers, symbolizing the friendly relationship between the villagers and golems. However, they won't spawn and offer poppies to other iron golems.

If not within a village, iron golems will slowly wander aimlessly.

Iron golems can walk up a full block height without jumping and walk over a 1 block wide hole without falling in. They will avoid water, lava, fire and cacti. Iron golems are immune to both drowning and fall damage. When in water, they will sink, immobilize, and become passive, but will still be pushed by flowing water.

When provoked, an iron golem will move quickly toward its target and once in range will swing its arms up violently to attack, dealing 7 () to 21 ( × 10.5) damage and flinging the target into the air. This attack is potentially the 3rd strongest Overworld attack in the game, beaten only by the explosion of a creeper or charged creeper. Iron golems have a comparatively large attack range, allowing them to attack through a solid 1 block thick wall, even without a line of sight to the target.

Iron golems have a chance of accidentally hitting another mob while attacking a hostile mob. Additionally, it is possible for multiple golems to simultaneously hit the same target. The height to which the victim is sent flying is relative to the number of golems that attack it.

Iron golems will attack any hostile or neutral mob within 16 blocks of them with some exceptions.

↑The iron golem doesn't attack the chicken on purpose, but it occasionally is hit when the golem is hitting the baby zombie.

↑An iron golem will try to attack the dragon, but can never reach it. Once the dragon flies far enough the golem loses its interest.

↑Naturally spawned iron golems will attack the player if the player attacks them first, but will give up if the player moves out of their search radius. The iron golem will also attack the player if they attack a nearby villager, and does not have to directly see the player to become hostile. They will automatically attack any players with a popularity of -15 or lower. Any iron golems built by the player will never attack players under any circumstances, but will still protect villagers from zombies.

Zombies, skeletons, spiders, cave spiders, slimes, and magma cubes will naturally attack iron golems on sight, and may cause major damage, especially if the mobs attack in groups. If an iron golem is attacked by multiple mobs, it will retaliate in the order it was attacked.

Iron golems have 100% knockback resistance. However, they can be knocked back by the Knockback enchantment on swords and the Punch enchantment on bows.

“This was made by me and Jon Kågström. We were thinking about how to get the Villagers to defend themselves, since they don’t have arms. The design was inspired very much by the Japanese Studio Ghibli movie with the giant [The Castle in the Sky]. It also has this flower. When I was making the model, I realised it was much harder to draw a texture for it – the larger it is, it gets more detailed. But it’s become quite iconic – it’s very emblematic of Minecraft now. We made it look like the Villagers, because obviously the Villagers would create a golem which would resemble themselves.” – Jeb[1]

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